


Impossible Shot

by notyouranswer (gorgeouschaos)



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: A few lines which reference suicidal thoughts and child abuse, Character Study, Other, Season/Series 01, Shooting Guns, or blasters rather
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:07:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24757525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorgeouschaos/pseuds/notyouranswer
Summary: The first time Juno Steel shoots a blaster, he falls in love with shooting.The first time Peter Nureyev sees Juno Steel shoot a blaster, he falls in love with Juno.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 8
Kudos: 70





	Impossible Shot

**Author's Note:**

> I just finished Season One, so hopefully nothing is too inaccurate.  
> // denotes a POV change.  
> Thanks for reading, hope you like it, and I love kudos/comments :)

The first time Juno Steel shoots a blaster, he’s fourteen, in the sewers, and thinking about killing himself again. 

What stops him is the thought that he’s wearing Sasha’s dress, and she wants it back. 

So instead of shooting himself, Juno lowers the blaster he stole from his mother and fires at the row of bottles he’d set up when he came down here.

The bottle he aimed at explodes in a shower of glass. Juno feels his split lip crack and realizes he smiled. 

Juno makes every shot after but one. Considering how bruised his right eye is, Juno figures he did alright.

He’s smiling when he gets home, and even his mother’s fury can’t dim how it felt to watch his targets break.

When the HCPD is-- rightfully, Juno admits-- on the fence about hiring him, it’s his marksmanship that makes them accept him. He’s got the best scores anyone’s ever seen. 

When they kick him out, his supervisor tells him it’s a damn shame.

“You could have been great, Steel,” she says. “You had the scores and the brains for it.”

“Yeah,” Juno says. “But not the lack of morals.”

The cops who toss him out break his ribs. Juno laughs as he spits blood at their feet, because he knows what it’s like to see bottles in a sewer explode from fifty feet away and nobody can ever take that from him. 

When it’s a choice between buying food and going to the firing range after the Kanagawa case goes south and Cecil loses his arm, Juno doesn’t even think twice. He’s been going hungry as long as he can remember, but he needs to shoot like he needs to breathe. Some days, Juno thinks he needs his blaster more than air.

The wall of fame at the range is mostly Juno’s targets. He holds every record he considers worth going after.

Juno takes the range farthest from the door. He inhales, exhales, pushes away the image of Cecil bleeding, and fires. 

Every shot hits, because this is the only thing that matters. 

He never misses, because this is what defines him.

//

Peter watches the stubborn, brilliant, absolutely _infuriating_ detective spin his blaster to point towards the cameramen and fire. 

It’s an impossible shot. So is the next one. 

PI Juno Steel doesn’t miss.

_Oh_ , Peter thinks with dawning realization. _Oh, I might be in trouble._

//

Juno loses his eye. He loses his ability to never miss an impossible shot. 

He turns his head to look at Peter and thinks maybe he has something better to define himself with, now. Someone better. 

Juno’s not stupid. He knows that Peter’s just another kind of impossible shot. 

But then again, that’s the only kind that’s ever been worth taking.


End file.
